Meghan McCain on politics: 'I really miss it'

Meghan McCain’s new TV show, “Raising McCain,” on the Pivot network, touches on politics but not nearly as much as you might expect from the daughter of a U.S. senator (her father is Sen. John McCain).

Should there be a second season, McCain says she’ll bring back the politics.

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“When I was going into Season One, I was really rejecting politics in the way I was focusing on it before,” McCain told POLITICO. “And, now, I really miss it. I think I would make Season Two a lot more political. … There’s a lot of really interesting things going on in politics right now, and I’d make it a little bit more of the moment. The government shutdown would have been a really interesting thing to talk about on my show.”

The show currently features McCain (and, occasionally, her friends and other guests) exploring a range of subjects she’s interested in, from bullying to feminism to sex.

“I still really love politics. I just don’t consider myself a pundit.”

Of course, for McCain politics has always been a double-edged sword; she’s proud and outspoken about her beliefs as a socially liberal fiscal conservative, but she earns herself detractors, as well.

“I don’t mind criticism. I don’t mind constructive criticism. I mind when it’s about your weight or my hair or the epithet of my voice — stupid things, superficial things.” And she rejects any suggestion of being a daughter of privilege.

“I get strong hate and strong love, but I think what pisses people off is the fact that I’m still here. I think I was supposed to go away and die after the 2008 campaign, and I’m really not supposed to be here at 29, still working in the media, still having fun and having a voice. People just seem pissed off that, if you have a famous parent, you’re not allowed to be ambitious and want a career. Just go away and live off your parents’ fame and be quiet, and I think that’s such BS.”

“People project onto me what they want me to be. If they want me to be this spoiled, crass senator’s daughter, then they will create that and say that to be on Twitter and write articles on me.”

But she’s also not willing to accept the opposite view: that she represents the future of the Republican Party.

“Some people think I’m the second coming of the new wave of Republicanism,” said McCain, who says that’s not a “fair” description. “I don’t think it’s fair to either demagogue me or put myself up on a pedestal.”

“I’m not speaking for all young Republicans. There are some very conservative Republicans out there. I just speak for whoever wants me to speak for them.”

McCain says that her Pivot show, which has run seven episodes, is “a work in progress” but adds, “I’m really happy with it.”

“Like every single thing I do, people really love it and people really hate it.”

One person who’s not such a fan? Gov. Chris Christie, who recently refused to respond to McCain’s criticism of him. (“Meghan McCain has no standing to be critiquing me other than as a citizen, and as a citizen, since she doesn’t live in New Jersey, I’m not responding to her.”)

“From a personality standpoint, I find him too aggressive — and this is me saying that. I’m quite an aggressive personality. … To sort of say that young women shouldn’t have a voice, I think that’s so dismissive, so ridiculous. And, whether or not he likes it or not, there are young people in this country, some young people, who will listen to what I have to say.”